A former Tory councillor said he was worried he was being set up when a roadside cocaine test gave a false positive, a court heard today.
Joe Miller, who was then a Rottingdean councillor, was stopped on the A27 after police officers spotted him speeding and tailgating.
He repeatedly fluffed roadside blood tests before finally blowing a positive one, and was then given a drug saliva test, which registered the false positive.
At the station, he had a panic attack which, his defence argues, meant he was not capable of giving consent to the blood test which led to him being charged with drink driving.
Today, he told the second day of his trial his arrest was like an “out of body experience” and he did not recall anything after arriving at Hollingbury police suite.
He said: “I was concerned for my health. I had never had a detention at school, I had never been in trouble with the police before and it was all extremely nerve wracking.
“I don’t think people understand just how nervous about the situation I was – and then to have a positive drug test.
“I was a politician, I didn’t know if I had been set up or if I was going to have a heart attack.
“I was panicking and nervous. It felt like an out of body experience and I found it very difficult to watch the footage afterwards.”
Under cross examination, he said he and his partner had moved in to their own house the previous evening, and had celebrated with three bottles of champagne.
On the day he was pulled over, he was on a fasting diet and had then had a large glass of wine at a shoot he attended at lunchtime.
He said: “I didn’t feel impaired, otherwise I wouldn’t have get into the vehicle.”
He said he had fluffed the roadside breath tests, sucking instead of blowing or not breathing enough into the tube, partly because he was nervous and partly because he had chewing gum in his mouth.
At the station, he said he didn’t feel he had given proper consent, saying: “I don’t believe I did give consent because I just wanted to go to hospital so the panic attack would stop.
“The police office was saying the only way I would go to hospital was if I gave a sample.
“It was a rather tortuous situation.”
